When you’re ready to travel again, we’ll be ready to welcome you.

One of the questions I’m getting asked a lot at the moment is what our hotels will look like on the other side of this crisis? As ever, that differs by market, but one thing that will remain steadfast is making sure our guests have peace of mind when they stay in our hotels, which means making sure they feel as confident in our standards of cleanliness as they did pre-Covid.

We already have a well-established culture in this area, which we call the IHG Way of Clean, delivered in conjunction with our long-standing partners and world-leaders in their field, Ecolab and Diversey. And today, we’re going a step further, by adding The Cleveland Clinic to our partnership, so that we can underpin everything we already do with science-led protocols and service measures. We’re also establishing a Global Cleanliness Board, who will ensure the actions we take continue to closely align to guidance from the World Health Organisation and local centres for disease control.

So, what does this mean for the future? Well, we already use hospital-grade disinfectants to deep clean, but we’ll be evolving our procedures in every area of the hotel. There’ll be some more visible measures, like sanitising stations in lobbies and cleaning kits in guest rooms. We’ll be offering paperless check-out and touch-less transactions at reception, reducing high-touch items from rooms, and frequently sanitising those that remain, such as remote controls. We’ll take a different approach to our food & beverage offering, with new standards and service approach to buffets, banquets, room-service and catering. Best practice guidelines have also been developed for our pools, fitness centres and lounges, and social distancing will operate in public areas, with our colleagues equipped with protective equipment where necessary.

We’ve covered all bases, but to provide you with extra assurance, from June 1st we’ll be launching the IHG Clean Promise: if you are unhappy with the room offered to you, report it to us within two hours and we will sort out the issue or offer you another room of an equal, or greater, value. You can read more about this here: www.ihg.com/clean

Throughout this crisis, I’ve said that when the world is ready to travel again, we will be ready to get back to doing what we do best. It’ll look different than it did before, but we’re making sure that the end result is the same when anyone stay with us – peace of mind and a sense of True Hospitality.